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They kept enemy planes from flying too close to the ground over big cities. If planes could roar in close to the ground they could strafe targets on the ground with the machine guns mounted in their wings, or more accurately drop bombs, or take pictures or otherwise spot things on the ground that the defenders wished to keep secret or undiscovered by the enemy. The barrage balloons were very large, almost the size of a small blimp, and they were tethered to the ground by steel cables. The balloons had to be big to be able to hold up the heavy steel cables. It was actually these steel cables which were their key part. A plane running into one of those cables would slice off a wing and then slam into the ground right away, with no chance for the pilot to bail out. So, where the "barrage" of balloons was thick enough, as over London in 1940, it was effective at keeping the enemy above several hundred feet of altitude over the city.

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